Cestoda
by hobonisuru
Summary: An assortment of various glimpses into possibility. Sad, silly, horror, or happy. This is something of a mixed bag.
1. Warlord Woman

"I swear to god, Lisa," I snarled, quietly. "I am going to beat you stupid with a frying pan for this."

Lisa—Tattletale—just grinned the same stupid foxy grin as always, albeit maybe, maaaaybe, with a tinge of sheepishness to it. The blood from her nose was smeared down the side of her cheek, and stretched oddly with her expression.

"Relax, Skitter." She said, with that same stupid smugness, and a severe lack of any sort of nasal quality to it despite the punch she'd taken. "They were totally going to try to kill us anyway."

'They' were a gang we, in theory, had been trying to reach out to in Cambridge. They called themselves the Delta Staid, despite not really being a delta of anything or all that staid. I seriously wish people actually thought about their names more deeply. They were only five parahumans, and about forty regular humans strong, but that was part of the point.

"Just," I said slowly, starting my rant, while continuing to harass the goons and direct my friends with my insects. "Because they were going to try anyway, doesn't mean you should have opened that big mouth of yours and started spilling their secrets. I mean, seriously? That last one was over the line."

"Yeah," Tattletale cringed a little. "Maybe. It was funny though!"

I paused.

"Yeah, okay, it was kind of funny." I smiled behind my mask, stifling a chuckle. "But it was still over the line."

"Got him!" I heard, and saw through my bugs, Regent cause one of the Delta's parahumans to electrocute his comrade. It was actually a pretty nice move, just the right twitch, at the exact right moment, to change the current away from Brian and into Periwinkle. With their main defense down, this was going to thankfully get wrapped up quite soon.

He was probably going to be gloating about that for weeks. Ugh. I'll have to get Aisha to distract him. Then again, he was probably only doing it to get a rise out of me. Maybe I should try to put him off balance. Hmm…

"That should be good enough," I heard Parian murmur. I let my spiders scurry away at her announcement, and watched a tapestry come to life as all the silk I'd sown around the room suddenly danced into a form. A form that conveniently wrapped up the last of the goons, and two of the parahumans—Surge and Swallow. I was pretty surprised those names hadn't already been taken, honestly.

"Excellent." I stood up from behind the bar counter and slid over it. "Now that you're the only one left standing, Hounder, let's get back to what I was saying."

"Fuck you, bitch!" The blaster shot another orb at me, which flew straight into the ground. The really sad thing about this was Hounder's ability relied on his physical muscles to control his kinetic balls' direction. Regent could no-sell him in his sleep.

"Hounder, listen." I didn't speak very loudly, even with my insects adding to my voice, but the other parahuman immediately shut up. Most people would if they felt a tickle at their throat and turned to see a dozen black widows lining their shoulders. "Listen carefully, because I'm not going to say this again, okay?

"I was going to do this differently, but now that you tried to kill us, you only have two options at this point." I held my forefinger into the air. "One, you get… heated again, and I'll dispose of you.

"Or two," I said, flicking a second finger, "You give me the information I want, and we don't have to do anything nasty."

"Th-the… y-you…" Hounder gulped audibly, still staring wide-eyed at my widows. I hadn't really shown off my deadlier insects to this group until now, so I guess he was shocked by the sudden threat of death.

Maybe he just had a fear of spiders. I don't know. Tattletale probably did, but if she knew what was good for her, she'd keep her trap shut. I wasn't completely kidding about that frying pan, and she'd have known it.

"The info, if you please?" I tapped the counter, causing a thump to echo in the bar. The place had pretty good acoustics, I had to say.

"T-the… the back, c-computer…" Hounder was starting to shiver, but still pointed to door behind the bar counter. "P-password's…"

"Disneyland?" Tattletale blinked, before walking into the indicated room, muttering. "Seriously?"

"Good." I nodded to Brian, who obliged with an aspect of Swallow's power and knocked out Hounder with a blow to back of the head.

"Now, I'm sure the rest of you were listening in just fine." I visibly caused my head to scan the room, catching the eyes of the rest of the Delta Staid that were still conscious. It was about presentation, really. Even if I didn't need to physically move to actually 'see' them, I wanted them to see me see them. "Unlike Hounder, who is a useless moron, you get three choices."

"One," I held up my finger again. "You stay in the Delta Staid. You dust yourself off, lick your wounds, and move on. Trying to eek out an existence, same as always. I don't particularly recommend this option, and I'll tell you why, but I'm still leaving it in the open.

"Two," I continued, while letting some of my bugs start traveling towards me, slowly. "You leave town. Hell, you might as well just leave the state. Drop everything unimportant, grab all the money you can, and just run like a bat out of hell. Because, you see, the Undersiders are not just here to meet and greet the other gangs of Cambridge. We're here to stay, my friends.

"And that gets into the third option, which is to join us. I hope I don't have to explain the benefits of this option. I like to think the results of my endeavors would speak for themselves. If you're under our banner, there will be a lot of changes from other gangs, but I can assure you that a lot of it will be for the better."

At this point, I had every bug in the bar circled around me. I stepped forward, and had my bugs move away from my feet as they touched the floor, only to merge back as I took another step again. Again. Presentation, Taylor, I reminded myself.

"I'll give you a little time to think, until my associate is back, but this will be a onetime offer." I spoke solemnly as I stared at my real target for this speech. I really, really wanted to hook this one. I'd had Tattletale run me through any scrap of data we could find on her. I needed to be scary, but controlled. Not hard, but the real selling point was that I needed a little bit more flair for the dramatic—not really something I thought I had too great a handle on, honestly. It tended to come off as somewhat cheesy.

But then, even that can be trumped by just how scared some people are of bugs.

She didn't look scared though. Omni, another name I was surprised wasn't already taken, blinked owlishly at me behind her domino mask. She looked… awkward, almost. A newbie, so new in fact she barely had a decent costume put together despite being a tinker.

And that was the rub. A tinker. Despite all our expansions, we had yet to actually pick one up, and Omni looked to be quite the prize. As far as what most people seemed to be aware, her specialty looked to be in incorporation of tools. Like a Swiss army knife, but less knife, toothpick and whatnot, and more like laser rifle, shielding device and jetpack. Except, from what Tattletale had put together, that was either a ruse, or Omni herself didn't understand her specialty. What Tattletale had guessed was that she was more like a tinker version of Accord. The greater the complexity of the device, the more in tune she was to create it. The only real limitation of it might be the cost of the materials would be increasingly large the bigger the creation got.

It was like a dream come true—if I could get her to join, anyway.

I'd been staring at her intently for a minute by this point, to which she'd been returning my gaze in equal measure, barring a few erratic blinks. I couldn't quite place the expression on her face. I'd like to say that she at least wasn't put off by my delivery, but I was never one for the dramatic—which Tattletale said Omni seemed to like—so I couldn't be totally sure.

"Got it!" Speak of the devil, Tattletale popped out of the back, swinging the chain her USB was connected to. "We're good to go."

"Then the time has come to make a choice." I scanned my captive audience again. Some were looking down, shaking or otherwise, some were staring at me with a wide range of different emotions, and a handful, of course, weren't even conscious. The latter didn't really matter, they were only a handful of goons. Omni was my main objective here, with maybe Periwinkle or Swallow also being a possibility. Surge would be unlikely to be interested, and I didn't even bother with Hounder for a reason.

"Choose carefully, you're no—"

"I'll join!" Omni practiced jumped, and likely would have if she wasn't wrapped tightly in Parian's bindings. "Please, let me join! Oh, holy crap, that was cool. How do you store your insects? Or, I mean, you must have a number of huge number of spiders to have crafted that suit, how did you prep the silk? And clean it. Maintenance must be important to keep its durability, right? Can you control them finely enough for them to weave for you, or do you just make it with your hands—oh wait, you must have really fine control given how you were walking and talking like that, right? Oh geez…!"

I paused, blinking for a second as Omni continued to ramble on, before shooting a glance at Tattletale—who, unhelpfully, just shrugged.

"Dear god, shut up." Swallow, the only one without her hands bound, slapped both of them to her face, groaning. "You stupid motormouth! I can't stand you! Just get out of here so I don't have to hear you ranting anymore!"

Omni quickly turned to Swallow, and just smiled. "But isn't it exciting, Molly? This is a really big gang, and they're trying to recruit us! They must have so many resources, and… and well, stuff! Stuff to mess with! You like stuff, right?"

I sighed as my recruiting effort turned into something decidedly less dramatic and serious as Omni, who turned out to be called Liza—and wouldn't _that_ just get confusing—babbled on to her best friend Molly about how amazing this all was, while the latter tried to continually shut her up—to no success at all.

In the end, though, all three of them—plus thirty of the goons—did join, so I guess it was a success. Sure, they'd need to be vetted, but Tattletale loved that process, or so she told me.

One step to conquering Cambridge down, I suppose?

* * *

Basic point: Dinah says nothing. Taylor cuts no apparel. Does not surrender, and instead… expands. She's got a world to save, after all. These are the voyages of the Brockton Bay Undersiders, exploring new cities, recruiting new minions, and generally just goofing off because there's a time for seriousness, and that's just about never (says everyone but Taylor, as they try to get her to relax).


	2. Good Eating

I drooled.

Just a little. Just a single droplet slid down the side of my mouth, that's all. I licked my lips, dipping my tongue out to grab the saliva and swallowing the copious amounts of it in my mouth down; all the while trying to ignore the surge of hunger that ached in me. It wasn't a sensation that squeezed at my stomach, not a yawning pit that begged for sustenance. No, it was a want—a desire to taste, to devour. It tingled in my mouth. My tongue almost seemed to sizzle with a need to drink in more flavor. A _want_, not a need, I reminded myself. It might not be a thunderous difference to some, but to me it was the line in the dirt. A marker I could point at and say, "No, not any more than this."

Because quite frankly if I didn't I'd go insane.

The worst part of it all was that I knew I should be revolted by it all, but all I could do was hold it back. I had to constantly remind myself that I couldn't. At first, I'd tried to convince myself that it was wrong—which it was, obviously—and that it was gross, and it was unacceptable. Things that I just picked up naturally, or sometimes was taught as a child, it was that type of thing. I could vaguely pulling off the wings of a fly, or eating my own boogers. Not because I liked it, really, but just because I could, because I wanted to see what happened. Things like that. Sometimes I'd get scolded for it, or just picked it up like… like some sort of osmosis. I don't know. I just learned it as I grew up, right?

Morals. That's what I'm getting at, I guess.

Sometimes people just picked up things like that. Aversions to spiders, fear or disgust of blood, or heights. Experiences, maybe, but it just sort of developed naturally, right?

The point was that just wasn't good enough. That type of thing only went so far when you're confronted with blinding evidence to the contrary every day—every waking moment, practically.

My nose twitched, a sweet tang tickled at my nostrils.

Shit.

I could _smell_ it.

The tingle in my mouth seemed to zap down my spine. I clenched my fists, fighting the trembling, restless energy that seemed to spring to life in my limbs. I could barely stop my shaking—the desire to just say screw it to everything and pounce, to feast.

God. I really was going insane.

"For fuck's sake, Clements, stop dripping everywhere. Gross." I scathed, the energy in my limbs seemed to burst out in my tone. The little sycophant actually jumped, looking at me wide-eyed. Heh.

"U-uh…" She actually stuttered, looking at me in amazement as blood dripped out of her nose. She'd been sniffling for the past minute trying to keep it in, but I could still smell it. God. A freaking bloody nose. That's it. That's all it took. Probably just from the dry air temperature.

"Wh-what's it to you, Hebert?" Madison's retort, if it could be called that, barely had any heat to it. She looked mildly freaked at my outburst, and started dabbing at her nose with a tissue. "F-freak. I wasn't…"

I already started ignoring her, trying to find some resemblance of calm.

This couldn't last. Not like this.

I couldn't last. If I didn't want to go on a rampage, I was going to have to look for an alternative.

It was something I'd first avoided thinking about. When I'd woke up in the hospital with all these strange urges, I'd been able to bottle it up, but by the time I'd gotten out, it'd already been itching away at me. When I'd finally gotten back to school, I'd already given up on the pretenses and delusions in my mind of actually being a normal person anymore. Now? Now I just fought not to be a monster.

Unfortunately… unfortunately I was going to have to give up a little bit more ground. The line in the dirt just got pushed back quite a ways.

But damn it, what else could I do?

* * *

The moon was full.

I had to give a sharp laugh at that. I'd been holing myself up whenever I could, ignoring my urges, and largely ignoring the world as much as I could. I hadn't noticed the phases of the moon as I tried to push the world away. The bullying used to bother me so much—used to chip away at my self esteem and identity, but when I'd gotten back to school I'd actually _relished_ the attention. In some ways, it still sort of hurt, but I took that hurt and wrapped myself up in it like a blanket. I held onto it like a lifeline.

Because it was. It seriously was.

I'd already let go of my hate and fear of my bullies. It'd only be a few short weeks, but those days stretched so, so far. They couldn't hurt me anymore—not really—and their attempts did nothing more than distract me. And I had sorely, sorely needed distractions.

But as I'd decided earlier in the day, that just wasn't enough anymore. I had to actually do something to quench the hunger. If I didn't…

Well, it wouldn't end well. Not for me, not for anybody.

It still looked like it wasn't going to end well, but I had to try something. Anything.

I looked at the mauled dog in my hands. Blood—unappetizing blood—dripped down my hands messily. My first attempt was a failure, obviously. Honestly, I hadn't expected it to satisfy my hunger. I'd never felt anything from strays, or pets, or… hell, anything but other humans.

I glanced in a window, and stared at the monster reflected back out.

It looked human, but it definitely wasn't. The hoodie over my head drooped down and kept most of my hidden, but the blood spatters all over my face and clothes… It caked me, and I never felt more comfortable.

I dropped the animal. It landed on the concrete with a wet, fleshy splat. All of the organs and guts, and blood, now just so much warm meat.

I knew it'd turn out this way. I could feel it in my bones. I'd fought it, and maybe, maybe, maybe, I was still fighting it. And I was still losing. Slowly, or perhaps swiftly given it had barely been a month and a half, I was being eroded away.

And it felt good.

That was the worst part. If I could just look away, cling to the disgust and negativity, I could probably live with it. I'd feel guilty as hell all the time, but I could just lock it away, deep, deep down. But the opposite? Feeling happy and just… _alive_, at the sensation of it all? That was something much different.

But I still hadn't sated my hunger. I felt a sense of anticipation, a building of tension in my limbs. My body already knew what was to come, even if the brain fought tooth and nail to avoid as much as it could.

So, I ran. Despite the moon shining overhead, I flew from shadow to shadow, blending in like I was made of the stuff. I was already close to the small, shitty territory held by the worst scum of the city. I'd wandered this way intentionally, even as I looked for smaller prey.

I wondered, briefly, if I wasn't making a mistake hunting for some Merchants. Not, as if I had any decency left for it, because they were human, but because they might very well be diseased or something. Or maybe if it came down to it, would feeding on a druggie drug me up, or something? It was probably a bad idea. Maybe I should pick at another criminal element in the city, it wasn't like I was lacking in options, but it wasn't just because they were criminals that I'd decided on them. When it came right down to it, nobody was going to miss any of them if they went missing or dead.

Huh. Guess I was a bit of a coward too. Didn't that just grate?

Finally, _finally_, I found what I was looking for. It had taken no more than a minute or two to reach my destination, but it was a compounded wait. I'd been waiting for this since I'd gotten out of the hospital, since I was put in the hospital—hell, maybe I'd been waiting for this even longer than that, who knows? It was, perhaps, more subtle than I would have figured. A lone man dressed shabbily, but wearing gang colors all the same. Standing guard and looking bored as hell at a dilapidated apartment building's busted doorway. I could _feel_ the presence of others in the place. Smell the chemicals. Hear the laughter, desperate and ugly.

I stopped, and focused. I listened passed the laughter, passed the chatter. I could hear it. The steady, rapid thumps of pumping veins. It was the sound of blood spurting throughout the bodies of twelve different people, or rather my twelve victims. I could feel it, more desperate and overwhelming than ever. The hunger—the want, I tried to remind myself, but no, at this point it was definitely a need—peaked, and shuddered through my body. The world was a blur as I leapt with each step, faster perhaps than any normal human could see.

And I pounced. No, no, I didn't just pounce—I came down in a fury. The guard didn't even see me as he fiddled with his poorly concealed gun. I dropped down and literally ripped off his head. A quick squeeze and pull, snapping his spine, and tearing off the muscles, tearing it off like a weed.

Before he even began to fall to the ground I was already moving, the world blurring around me as I ripped through the Merchant den. I felt like I should have been thundering with the speed I was moving, but even as I crushed the skull of another Merchant, blood, gore and bone fragments splattering, there was only the ambient noises and chatter masking the sounds of my rampage. I knew where every occupant was, and there was little in the way of doors—or at least intact ones. I snapped a neck, caved another skull in, and tore another head off within seconds of another. The ones with guns never saw me, the ones full of drugs weren't even conscious of me. The head or the neck, I always focused on killing swiftly.

In less than a minute, there wasn't a single living person in the building save for me. I'd twisted around the last one's head with a visceral pop.

And I _reveled_.

It was over so quickly, it passed by in almost an instant, but that instant was glorious. I'd run through the building so quickly, yet so quietly. It wasn't even a fight, it was just a slaughter. None of them had even known they were about to die—they just did. I willed it, and it was done. It wasn't even difficult. No, it was easy.

But I couldn't take time to bask in that sensation. My hunger called. It throbbed. It was a thousand times worse than anything I'd felt since the hospital, and it felt _amazing_.

I ran back through the building just as quickly—no, even faster than before. Grabbing bodies like so much slabs of meat and carrying them with ease, bringing them all in the lobby-ish area of the building.

And then I feasted. Mouth watering, I gorged myself. Each bite was a more than just taste, it was an experience. I ate everything. Raw, fleshy muscle and flesh, chunks of organs or whole, and the bones too. Everything. I'd first tried eating the bone marrow like crab, but quickly just crushed it all down, breaking it down to mush—delicious mush—and gulping it with relish.

When I was finished, there was nothing left but ripped, bloody clothes and scattered belongings. There were guns and drugs lying about in the apartment, probably. I left it be. I wouldn't even know what to do with the stuff even if I'd had the desire to take it all. Maybe there was even money stashed somewhere, but even that had no appeal to me right now.

I was fully sated. Apparently it took ten men and two women for me to be satisfied from the hunger after half a dozen weeks, but I was finally, _finally_ sated. It was a feeling I could barely imagine. Like the filling of a gaping hole in my being that I hadn't even realized needed filling.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I might feel guilty, or doubt, or want to kill myself, or something. But for the night… that clichéd night with a full moon, I would be content. I had no doubts. I fully believed I would sleep with ease for the first time since I'd woken up with these powers.


	3. A Scene at the World's End

Colin woke up suddenly. He didn't even recall falling asleep as he'd pounded away at his resources, looking for a solution, anything, no matter how insane. It was a fervor born from pure desperation. He had been running himself ragged for days on end. How could he not, after all?

The world was ending.

Perhaps it could already be said to have ended.

But the moment he regained consciousness, he knew something was wrong. It was obvious, after all. He wasn't in his lab. He didn't have his armor—in fact, he was naked. Most obvious was the fact that he was tied to a chair.

It didn't take a tinker genius to realize he was in danger.

Immediately, almost without prompting, solutions began shooting through his brain. It was sometimes a curse—efficiency—as not all the solutions were the most feasible in his current restraints, but there were some…

"Morning, Wallis." The voice shook his thoughts for a moment as his gaze went from inward to outward, trying to spy his captor.

It was a girl. A young girl, in fact. Dark blonde. Somewhat thin, but not incredibly so. Freckles. No mask or costume, just some mildly dirty, ordinary clothing. No expression.

"Why did you kidnap me?" Even as Colin spoke, engaging his enemy, his mind was still at work trying to pull an escape plan in motion. 'If I can keep her distracted, I can try and reach the pistol I have implanted in my heel.'

It could work. The pistol fired a shot of scorching plasma, just a single shot, but it'd be enough to punch a hole through someone without any sort of armor. Although if his captor had any sort of defensive parahuman ability, it wouldn't work all that amazingly.

Still. It was a chance he'd have to take.

"Lot of reasons, really." The girl flashed him a tight smile—it hit him immediately. It was only a moment, but a flash of insight allowed him to recognize that grin.

"Tattletale." Colin breathed out for a second, almost letting himself relax. "Is it information you want? You don't need to kidnap me. With all that's going on, I'll gladly give you anything you wa—"

Colin stopped as Lisa pulled up a handgun and flicked off the safety.

"Don't go making promises you can't keep, Wallis." Tattletale's expression dripped more down into a frown—not a face he was used to seeing on her. She almost perpetually walked around with some sort of smug grin.

"What are you doing?" Colin's eyes darted from side to side, trying to take in anything else that might give him an edge. Looking around the busted room—it really was in poor shape. He might still be able to grasp his pistol if he strained his legs hard enough under the chair, but without her noticing? That would be a bigger problem.

"Something I've been wanting to do for a long, long time." Tattletale's hand wavered slightly, not pointing directly at his head anymore. "But I suppose that can wait for a few more minutes. I bet you're wondering why. Go on, go ahead and ask why."

"Why?" Colin obliged, but mostly because he had another burning question in his mind. Well, that and he still needed time to think. He was absolutely sure he could flick out the pistol and grab it in less than a second, but that wouldn't exactly allow him to shoot Tattletale. Maybe if he knocked over the chair…? "Why are you doing this now? It's the end of the world, Tattletale. Think! We need to pool our resources, not squander them!"

"Oh, Wallis." Tattletale sighed heavily. "You just don't get it, do you? It's exactly _because_ it's the end of the world that I'm doing this. You think there's going to be some magical solution to beat Scion, but I can tell you: that ship has long since been sunk.

"We've already blown our big chance to kill the loony. Even Cauldron, or what's left of it anyway, is just doing delaying tactics to keep Scion away from the groups they think have a better chance of hiding. _Hiding_, not fighting back in any way. The only way Scion's going down at this point is when he just runs out of steam."

"You don't know that!" Colin felt a rage swell up in his chest. He wasn't going to give up and just let everything die, especially running and dying. He had too many things to do, and he still needed to save Dragon. "You _can't_ know that! Scion's immune to your powers, to all Thinker powers!"

"Oh man, fuck you, Wallis." Tattletale's expression settled into a pained grimace. "Yeah, Scion might have some sort of weakness, but you know what? That doesn't matter. Mankind has already given up, even if you're still banging away with your toys because you're too stupid… too… idealistic to see it. And you know what? Fuck you. Fuck you so fucking much. Took you long enough to actually start giving a damn.

"You know," Tattletale gave another sigh. "I used to not even give a damn myself. I heard about the world ending and just said, 'so what?'"

"But then you changed!" Colin interrupted. "You started using everything you could to prepare and stop it, Tattletale! Practically half the resources we had at our use was because you—"

Colin's heart clenched as a shot rang out, and he felt a burst of pain—through his leg.

"Fuck, you're hopeless." Tattletale growled. "Do you know _why_ I changed? Why I started giving a damn? It was because of _her_. Because of just one girl. And do you know what happened to her? Do you, you fucker?"

"Who?" Colin's voice came out hoarse. It wasn't from the pain in his leg.

"Her name was Taylor," Tattletale told him. "You might, just might, recall her as Skitter."

He did.

"You killed her, Wallis." Tattletale gave him a sharp glare. "You killed bunches of people that day, but Taylor? Taylor was important to me. I wanted to kill you ever since.

"But I put that aside. You know why?" Tattletale barked a short laugh. "Because I wanted to do what she would have done. I wanted to hold something of hers alive—anything—so I tried to do everything I could to do the… do the right thing."

Colin let out a slow breath, and quickly tried to put the last pieces of his plan together in his mind. He was only going to get one shot—almost literally—and if he failed he was definitely going to die. Tattletale wasn't going let him go.

"But in the end, all of that failed. I couldn't do a goddamn thing. I couldn't…" Tattletale swallowed audibly, a shuddering shook her body. "I couldn't live up to Taylor. I couldn't save anybody. So, at the very fucking least, I'm going to avenge her."

Colin pushed his chair back with one foot, ducking the other back at the same time to grab at the pistol he shot out of his heel. Using the force of his own body weight from the fall, he _yanked_ his arms at the same time it hit the ground—breaking the flimsy wood—and tumbling around a rotten looking couch so he could pull his arms out from behind his back. Difficult? Exceedingly. But doable for a Tinker like him.

He jumped around the other end of the couch in a crouch and took aim with his pistol—

Lisa just stared back.

Colin froze. A cold feeling settled onto his heart as he slowly stood up.

And dropped his gun.

"Smart move." Tattletale nodded, leisurely pulled up her handgun again.

"The weight was off." Colin shrugged. "A Tinker can always tell when their weapons have been tampered with."

"Yeah, I can't build anything, but I can sure as hell mess anybody's shit up." Tattletale flashed a brief, foxy grin, before her expression settled back into the same, cold grimace. "You know, Wallis. I've killed a bunch of people before. But I've always done it because it needed to be done, you know? Coil needed to die because he was fucking things up, both for me and for Dinah. Accord needed to die 'cause he just couldn't get along with anybody—no matter how damn much I tried to coax or appease his anal retentiveness. Jack needed to die—not that I was able to do it in time—'cause he was going to end the world.

"But you, Wallis?" Tattletale shook her head. "You, I want to kill. Just for me. Just because you killed my best friend, and I could never forgive that, no matter how much she might have wanted me to."

"Tattlet—"

"Fuck you, Wallis." Tattletale looked Colin straight in the eye. "I'll see you in hell."

And pulled the trigger.


End file.
